AP National News

By THANASSIS STAVRAKIS and SRDJAN NEDELJKOVIC Associated Press KYTHIRA, Greece (AP) — Officials say strong winds are hampering efforts around two Greek islands to find at least 10 migrants believed to be missing after back-to-back shipwrecks left 23 people dead. A dinghy and a sailboat sank in separate incidents off the islands of Lesbos and

By JOE McDONALD and MATT OTT AP Business Writers Wall Street shifted between small gains as losses early Friday with all eyes on the release of U.S. employment data that could affect decisions by the Federal Reserve as it attempts to curb inflation through interest rate hikes. Futures for the S&P 500 fell less than

By EILEEN NG Associated Press KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia plans record development spending in 2023 despite a proposed smaller national budget. The budget unveiled Friday is laden with the usual cash handouts, tax cuts and other goodies ahead of impending general elections. Finance Minister Zafrul Aziz proposed a budget of $80 billion, down

BERLIN (AP) — Officials in Europe praised the awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to activists standing up for human rights and democracy in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said the award to Belarusian rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil

By GERALD IMRAY AP Sports Writer Police firing tear gas into a crowd of soccer fans. Exits locked against all safety regulations. It leads to a crush where people are trampled to death or suffocate. Soccer’s three worst stadium tragedies occurred over a 60-year span but are so strikingly similar that its clear lessons haven’t

By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s military appears to want to conscript BTS band members for military duty amid a heated debate about exemptions for athletes, musicians and others. The commissioner of the Military Manpower Administration told lawmakers Friday it was “desirable” for BTS members to fulfill their duties

By LYNN ELBER AP Television Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Judy Tenuta, a brash standup who cheekily styled herself as the “Love Goddess” and toured with George Carlin as she built her career in the 1980s golden age of comedy, has died. She was 72.  Her publicist says Tenuta died Thursday afternoon at home in

By COREY WILLIAMS, CLAIRE SAVAGE and MIKE HOUSEHOLDER Associated Press DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Authorities say a man accused of fatally shooting a hotel clerk in suburban Detroit during a dispute over money has surrendered to police after barricading himself inside a room. The gunman’s surrender at the Hampton Inn in Dearborn occurred shortly before

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON (AP) — The British government has opened a new licensing round for North Sea oil and gas exploration, despite criticism from environmentalists and scientists who say the move undermines the fight against climate change. The North Sea Transition Authority said Friday that almost 900 areas of the North Sea

By TASSANEE VEJPONGSA and DAVID RISING Associated Press UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand (AP) — Relatives wailed and collapsed in grief over the small coffins of children Friday after a fired police officer stormed a rural Thai day care center at naptime and massacred dozens of people. Thailand’s deadliest mass killing left virtually no one untouched in

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writers BEIJING (AP) — Global stock markets were mixed Friday ahead of U.S. employment data investors hope will show the economy is weakening and persuade the Federal Reserve to ease off plans for more interest rate hikes. London and Frankfurt opened higher. Tokyo and Hong Kong declined. Oil prices rose.

By HANNA ARHIROVA, FRANK JORDANS and VANESSA GERA Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Human rights activists from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a strong rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine ruptured decades of nearly uninterrupted peace in Europe, and to the Belarusian president, his

By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. Navy has held a joint drone drill with the United Kingdom in the Persian Gulf. The drill Friday tested the same unmanned surveillance ships that Iran twice has seized in recent months in the Middle East. The exercise comes as the U.S.

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME and HERBERT MOYO Associated Press MASERU, Lesotho (AP) — Thousands of voters in Lesotho are casting their ballots in the country’s general elections. The elections are a tight race between the top three parties out of a field of more than 60 registered parties. Outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Mathibeli Mokhothu of the

By ADAM SCHRECK Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The death toll from a missile attack on apartment buildings in a southern Ukrainian city rose to 11 as more Russian missiles and — for the first time — explosive packed drones targeted Ukrainian-held Zaporizhzhia on Friday. As the war sparked by Russia’s February invasion of

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Financial Services Agency has ordered brokerage SMBC Nikko Securities to suspend its block trading operations for three months as part of penalties in a market manipulation case. That follows the arrest of its vice president and several other employees for allegedly putting in massive buy orders to prop up stock prices

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Officials in Denmark are puzzled by four small tremors that were recorded this week off a northeastern Danish island in the Kattegat sea. Denmark’s seismological agency detected the tremors in international waters Tuesday and Wednesday. They were approximately 30 seconds apart and were all measured at less than 1 on the

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB Associated Press BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s health minister has said the authorities are inspecting new suspected cases of cholera, less than a day after confirming its first case of the illness in the country since 1993. Caretaker Health Minister Firas Abiad said at a news conference on Friday that the country documented

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbian police say that two migrants died when they were struck by a train in the eastern part of the country bordering Bulgaria. Police say the accident happened around 8 p.m. on Thursday when the train hit the men who were walking on the line. Migrants trying to reach Western Europe

PRAGUE (AP) — The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia have held talks in Prague in efforts to ease tensions between the two longtime adversaries.  A joint statement released early Friday said Armenia agreed to “facilitate a civilian EU mission alongside the border with Azerbaijan.” It followed a meeting in the presence of the EU Council